


an empty stake burns

by GremlinGirl



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age, Brendol Hux is a magistrate, Execution, Fire, Kyluxxoxo Fest, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post, Religious Language, Rey makes a cameo, Witch AU, Witch Burning, Witch!Kylo Ren, damsel!Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 16:20:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15416841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GremlinGirl/pseuds/GremlinGirl
Summary: "Love sacrifices all things to bless the thing it loves." -Edward Bulwer-Lytton





	an empty stake burns

**Author's Note:**

> My friend gave me the inspiration for this, so thanks friend! I didn't really know how to warn people about this, so I'm putting a few spoilers at the end, just in case there's anything trigger that I missed. If you're easily triggered, please check the end.

The white garb hung about his frame, a large sack of fabric that did nothing to cover his shoulders properly. They bulged from the sleeves, cooking in the bright sun above him. Hands tied behind him to the post, Kylo couldn’t turn or move without straining a muscle. His lips stretch over white teeth, cracking and dry. The sun burns him, and Kylo winces as he tries to shift, to get his significant weight off his knees. 

 

Cruelly, just a few feet ahead was the town pump. He could see the slightest bit of water collecting on the end of the tap, and it was close to dripping onto the dry cobblestones below it. The people milled about: the bakers, tailors, peasants doing business, a little market set up to sell horses down the way. He could hear them all, but the sound meant nothing. The dripping of the water was all he wanted to hear. As if in answer to his prayers, a young girl appeared, carrying a bucket, which she set underneath the pump. Standing on one side, she began to fill it up with water, and Kylo watched with dry and aching eyes as the liquid spilled down into the bucket, pumped up from the well beneath the earth. 

 

When the bucket was full, her buns bouncing atop her head, Kylo called out. His voice carved through his aching throat. He’d been here since evening, with nothing to eat or drink. His throat was parched, lips cracking painfully. “Little girl!” he called, hoarse. She looked over at him, and Kylo smiled, trying to be charming. It had never been his forte. “Little girl, would you spare even a small drink of water?” he asked, slowly letting his eyes slip across the town square. In each corner stood a guard, decked in the red of the Magistrate’s office, with bronze armor on their arms and legs. To protect from him, iron would be a better use, but he was pretty much useless in this position anyway. 

 

The girl, a brunette with eyes the size of saucers, slowly took a few steps toward him. Then, she stopped, clearly nervous. “I don’t think I’m supposed to do that, sir,” she said. 

 

“Yes, but, it’s okay. This one time. Consider it charity to a dead man.” He would burn later. Kylo knew the Magistrate would never return with an innocent verdict. Not after the witch hunter knights had raided his home and torn him from the midst of a spell. His eyes blackened with the Magics, shakes in his body, and he’d spit at them in Latin and Greek and Hebrew. Any language he knew to contain the power he needed. Still, the strap around his neck, choking him, had done its job to silence his spell and put him to sleep. He’d awoken, in a cell, knowing that his fate had already been decided. 

 

A mockery of a court! They’d stripped him, pointed to every blemish on his skin, every freckle and mole, called it the mark of the devil. They’d asked him how many times he’d whored himself out, turned a harlot for Satan himself. And Kylo had stood, silent, but accepting. Taken here, he’d been left in the town center until his sentencing was over. They’d burn him at dusk, he knew. It was the way of the conservative Magistrate, so fearful of what he did not understand. 

  
  


“What is your name?” the girl asked, and she walked closer to him. The water in the bucket sloshed deliciously, and Kylo looked down into it. He could see droplets along the edge, and if only she’d ladle some out of him, then he would know a touch of peace before meeting his flaming death. 

 

“Kylo Ren,” he said, trying to keep the smile on his face. It was strained, but genuine. He wouldn’t want to scare her off, when she offered him liquid life. Just a taste, and he would be able to go to his death in peace, knowing that it would at least save the man he loved. 

 

“I’m Rey,” she said, putting the bucket down. Lifting the ladle from the side, she dipped it in the water and filled it up. Then, she held it aloft to his lips, and Kylo nursed at the end of it, drinking down the water. It poured over his tongue, down his throat, refreshing. “You are...the witch?” she asked, and it was a careful sort of query. Her eyes shifted around, looking to the guards. 

 

“Well, I can’t say,” Kylo said, licking his lips. “Have you ever met a witch, Rey?” 

 

“I can’t say, either,” she said, then dropped the ladle down into the water once more. “And I can’t stay.” She lifted her bucket, then began trekking away from him, walking backwards across the haphazardly placed cobblestones. “Goodbye, Mr. Kylo.” 

 

“Thank you,” he said, though didn’t call her back. Lesser men may beg, but Kylo had always known that this would be his fate. Hanging his head, Kylo whispered a prayer. And if it was for anything, then he would just want to bless his dearest love. That he would have a long and prosperous life, away from all of this. Perhaps find love once more. His eyes flutter open, and Kylo takes in the sight of boots in front of him. A black robe that swished the ground. His eyes traveled upward, to the snarling face of Brendol Hux. The Magistrate of Blackwell Parish. Tilting his head, Kylo blinked his sun drenched eyes. 

 

“Your honor,” he croaked, only wishing that he could still curse the wretched man. 

 

“Filth.” The man’s voice cut him like glass, a cold wound, but Kylo didn’t give him the satisfaction. His features were familiar. The nose, the eye color. He looked as one might expect. Sharp featured and cruel. Kylo knew what he looked like, because he laid beside the same features each night. Set in a different face, one not weathered by years, without the sagging bags under his eyes and the yellowing teeth. Armitage Hux, his love, the son of the Magistrate. 

 

“All you must do, witch, is publicly confess your crimes and tell me where you’re hiding the fugitive. You will be remanded to custody in the jailhouse, until such time as your salvation is guaranteed.” Hux spike over him, and people began to gather. If he wanted a show, then Kylo would give him one. 

 

“Go to hell,” he proclaimed. A wild grin took flight off his lips, his eyes singed with black soot as he gazed wickedly up at the cloaked man. 

 

“It is you who will find yourself among the fiery blazes, witch. It is you who sold your soul to Satan, offered up your supple flesh to his carnal pleasures. You whored yourself to the devil, and now you must pay your debt.” Brendol could spin a story however he wanted, and the mummerings is the gathered crowd were enough to know that he’d already won them over. It wasn’t hard, turning the public against a witch. Whether the Magics were really with them or not, the fear always was. 

 

“I have it on good authority that you’ll burn, actually,” he said, blinking. Then, Kylo looked back down. His wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, and Kylo settled back against the post. 

 

“You seal your fate.” Kylo knew the burning behind the man’s words, rage that built inside his hollow chest. Brendol Hux had given away his shriveled heart years ago, and now he was just a husky of a man. To be pitied, not feared. Kylo would not bend to his will, no matter what he did. “You will burn. At dusk. Guards! Prepare the pyre.” 

 

The robes swished as he walked away, and Kylo watched his retreating back for a moment. The knowledge of Armie’s whereabouts would die with him. Brendol would never get his claws in his son ever again. Kylo would die, but he would die for the right reason. The oppression and distrust that came with his craft had always been his undoing, the inability to turn away from the innate powers that he was born with. There was only one regret: to never see his Armitage again. 

 

His head bowed, Kylo leaned back against the post and watched the shadows began to stretch as the sun set behind him. The blessedly cool kiss of night brushed his skin, as a wind from the north wafted through the courtyard. The market cleared, people returning to their homes for dinner. Some would gather that night, on the hill outside of town, to watch the witch burning. It was a spectacle. Some brought their children. To them, it was almost a sport. The screams of the dying would fill the air, until snuffed out by smoke and flame. 

 

Kylo did not look forward to the burning. To die with dignity was all he wanted, but the method took that right away from him. He would beg for a hanging, but the Magistrate here was severe. The art of witchcraft was expressly forbidden in the parish. To be a witch, to exist, was a crime of the highest order. And it had been too long since he’d burned a witch. Brendol Hux thirsted for blood, and he would get it tonight. 

 

Crickets chirped in the night, and Kylo lifted his head as footsteps approached him. He could hear the leather soles slapping the ground, and his eyes went to the guards beside him. They bent, one with a drawn knife from his belt, and he brandished the glinting silver as a weapon. The moonlight, silvery, shone down on them as the ropes tying his hands to the post were undone. He was hoisted to his feet by the guards, and they marched him through the cobblestone streets. They cared little for his hindered state, shoeless and weak from a day spent in the sun with no food and little water. 

 

Pushed from the town and onto the dirt path that led up onto the hill, Kylo could already see the growing crowd. It was rowdy; drunks and families mixing together for the night. Humiliatingly, he was dragged through the crowd. The guard in front of him made a path, but he was still dragged up through the center of the bristling mob. 

 

“Burn the witch!” 

 

“Send Satan’s whore straight to hell!” 

 

“Let’s light him up!” 

 

Kylo glanced around, the vitriolic hatred flung at him, acidic statements that burned in his chest. He’d lived among these people, and still, they turned on him at the very hour of his demise. One word, one hint, and his reputation permanently tarnished. His legs faltered, knees crashing into the dirt, and Kylo was forcibly dragged the rest of the way to the pyre. 

 

The stacks of wood around the stake rose in front of him, and Kylo sucked in a shaky breath. He could see the place the planned to destroy him, and his fear finally crested. The thundering heart in his chest beat against his ribcage like a pack of wild horses, and Kylo twisted and shook his head a few times, wishing to free himself. Armitage. Armitage. He had to think of Armitage. He had to know, to feel, that this was the right thing, to know that his love would survive thanks to his sacrifice. That would be the only thing to give him strength to do this. 

 

He was lifted above the wood, until the pyre, and his hands were tied painfully behind him. More ropes circles his body, keeping him restrained to the post where he would meet his end. To keep his struggles down, to make sure his pain lasted, they would hold him against the pole until the flames engulfed him. A few tears tracked down his face, and Kylo looked into the angry crowd. The firelight from the torches around them lit them up, and it seemed a band of demons stood before him. He looked to the cloudless sky instead, watching the stars. They looked down on him, silent watchmen to the horrific travesty about to occur. There would be no help from above, no escape. 

 

The Magistrate cut a separate path through the crowd, followed by the executioner, and a priest to read him last rites if he so wished. Kylo could have spit on the man, for assuming he’d bend a knee to their God at the last second. The ropes held him tight, and Kylo struggled to get at least one hand free so he could lash out at the men now surrounding him. The ground around him was ashy, barren, and it sung the sad tale of the innocents who’d died here. 

 

“Last chance, witch.” Kylo looked toward Brendol Hux’s sneering face. He leaned forward, whispering to him. “Tell me where Armitage is, and I’ll say you repented. Take you to a cell and let you die there, peaceful. You don’t want to know the flames.” 

 

“You’re the one who will burn for eternity, you murderer,” Kylo spat back, venom lacing through his words. “Ne perenni cremer igne inferiori corporis.” 

 

Brendol Hux glared him down, but Kylo didn’t bend. Finally, the man turned, raising his hands. The wide sleeves billowed around him. “People! Let it be known that the witch refuses to repent. He stays locked in Satan’s sway and won’t heed God’s warnings. On this day, by the power of God, I sentence him to Satan’s pit! The age of the witches is coming to an end!” 

 

A righteous scream rose up from the crowd, people clamoring and shouting, bottles clinking together, and the demands of the crowd swelled to a crescendo. Burn the witch, they screamed, and the executioner lifted his torch. Moving back, Brendol’s face fell into darkness, and Kylo could only see the wicked smile before the orange and red fire danced into his vision. 

 

The torch lowered, and the flames licked at the wood below him. Kylo watched, shuffling back against the stake, pushing onto his toes as he watched the fire take. More tears streamed from his eyes, which were glued to the fire as it began to spread. It was quicker than he’d imagined it would be. He thought, a minute, at least before the flames reached him. But a mere second later, and he could already feel its heat. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, on his spine, and Kylo looked up to the stars again, one last desperate plea for mercy. But nothing would come. He was going to die, screaming and in peril. 

 

Rising fast, the flames danced around him, the wood catching quickly. Dry it was, quick to combust. Kylo would not be so lucky. All he could see was the orange and red of the raging fire, and he moved and shifted as much as he could, even as the ropes bit into his skin painfully. Nothing was quite as painful as the rising heat around him. His legs were the first victims. The fabric draped about him didn’t quite stretch past his knees, and the skin below began to boil as flames kissed along it. Kylo let out his first scream, a desperate wail that the crowd echoed with a cheer. His head fell pack on the post, eyes drying. He couldn’t cry when the air around him was hot and arid. Each breath in burned. 

 

A thwang, and something whistled through the air. Kylo’s eyes alighted on a flash of movement before something pierced through the priest to his left. Tilting his head down, Kylo sucked in painful breath after painful breath, his eyes trying desperately to focus. The air seemed to shimmer and dance before him, the heat of the fire distorting his vision. But, yes, he could see familiar blue feathers. The tip of an arrow, carved and weighted in his own home. The priest hit the ground with a dull thump, and four more arrows came sailing through the air. Two landed on the ground before the pyre, and the other two hit the executioner dead center in his chest. He fell as well. 

 

The crowd dispersed, and Brendol called for them to return: “People, it is the devil’s wor-” A wet squelch interrupted his speech, and Kylo saw the tip of an arrow break through the back of his neck. He fell backward, his head falling into the pyre. Sparks shot up as the flames attacked a new victim with frenzy, and Kylo smelled flesh cooking, something he’d grown accustomed to, living here. Then, he heard the hoofbeats, a hooded figure riding up to the pyre. 

 

His vision went hazy, another screaming fit taking him as the edges of the fabric he wore caught fire, and Kylo could feel the flames rising up his body, threatening to end his life as rescue sat on the edge, mere seconds away. A knife cut through the ropes tying him, and Kylo ran off the pyre and into the dirt, flopping into the ash of old victime and rolling until the flames were out, his hands patting the warm fabric down as he cried. His legs were blistered, an angry red, painful in every way. He laid, his hair collecting dust and ash, a man taking a knee beside him. 

 

“Kylo,” he whispered, brushing his fingers through locks of tangled, black hair. 

 

“Armie,” he said, because he knew that voice anywhere. Sweeping off his hood, Armitage revealed his face, and Kylo forgot his pain for a crisp, clear second. Leaning up, he connected their lips in a short, heated kiss. His lips were dry and cracked, but he still wanted to feel the man, to love him, to cherish that face between his palms. 

 

“You dolt,” the man replied lovingly, cradling his head as Kylo laid back down, sobbing. “You could have gotten yourself out of this.” 

 

“Sure, maybe.” Kylo whimpered. “But then Brendol would have just come after you again. And again. He never would have stopped, Armie. You were always at risk, as long as you were with me.” 

 

“Well, he’s not chasing anyone anymore.” A dead body laid in his place, burned by the pyre. Out of the corner of his eye, Kylo could see the man being consumed by fire. A justified end to a tyrannical man. "He got exactly what he deserved," Armie said. "And I'm not going to fear him anymore." There was strength in his voice, and Kylo could have crowed with happiness if he weren't in so much pain.

 

Armitage stood, grabbing onto Kylo’s wrists and pulling. It was a struggle, but Kylo managed to stand. He wasn’t going to be able to walk far, but it was lucky. Armitage had brought their horse. Kylo climbed up on it, sitting astride as Armitage took a seat behind him. Kylo leaned his head on the man’s shoulder and cried as the horse took off in a gallop back toward their home. There were healing potions there, and clothes. They would grab what they needed, then run. Their lives were spent running a lot. But, as Hux brushed a kiss into his messy hair, Kylo knew that it was worth it. 

 

For Armie, anything was. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about a witch burning. Kylo decides to sacrifice himself for Hux by accepting his fate, which is to be burned at the stake for the crime of witch burning. He's saved at the last possible moment, though, by Armitage, who kills his own father in the process. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, for any of you reading this who're still waiting for part four of Punk, I promise I'm going to get that to you as soon as possible.


End file.
